Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Balancing your career and personal life is no easy task.
But if you're a data scientist, tour guide or social media manager, it may be easier to maintain a healthy work-life balance, according to Glassdoor.
The jobs site, which compiles data about workplaces, released a list of the top highly rated jobs for work-life balance. The results are entirely based on employee feedback over the past year.
Image: ISAR CHANG
Every inventor seems to think their invention is worth a million dollars, but I haven’t seen anyone pay that much for one yet. In fact, I often have to tell aspiring entrepreneurs that their inventions have zero value, at least not until they are put in the context of a business plan, with qualified people committed to executing the plan. Early-stage ideas fall in the same category.
Investors mostly agree that choosing top-performing entrepreneurs is probably the most important factor in their success. But how you identify a great entrepreneur is not so clear cut.
What do we look for? When we (an early stage venture fund) decide to back an entrepreneur, want to see a track record of success, ideally as a CEO, or C-level executive in a successful start-up, deep knowledge of the industry the venture wants to disrupt (to fix it you need to understand it), and high-level contacts with potential customers and partners. Investor contacts are good too.
President Obama’s visit earlier this month to 1776, the startup hub in downtown Washington, D.C., shined a spotlight on entrepreneurship and innovative thinking nationwide. It was a good location because the contemporary, well-lit loft that incubates and supports area startups has grown from zero to 215 members in only a year-and-a-half.
Image: Students in the first two cohorts of the MA in Media Entrepreneurship mingle at a networking reception at 1776. Photo courtesy of American University.
There’s a panoply of alternative funding streams for healthcare startups out there – fledgling companies are seeking out avenues like prepaid revenue models, grant funding in lieu of venture capital, and the ever-popular crowdfunding approach.
The outcomes can be a mixed bag, however, said a panel of speakers at MedCity News’ CONVERGE conference in Philadelphia today.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
There are plenty of crowdfunding platforms besides Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and they offer a variety of processes, fees, and uses. The list of platforms has become seemingly endless, ranging from ones designed for personal giving campaigns and non-profit fundraising, to renewable energy and academic research.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
The breakaway success crowdfunding project of the summer is here: Coolest Cooler is now the 4th 3rd most funded campaign EVER on Kickstarter. The dark horse campaign has blasted past mega-crowdfunding hits like Veronica Mars and the campaign has not even broken a sweat. The only campaigns that stand in its path to become number one are; Neil Young’s Pono, game counsel OUYA and PebbleWatch that trailblazed wearable tech. In the ten days since Coolest Cooler launched the “portable party disguised as a cooler” has raised over $6 million from over 30,000 backers – averaging $600,000 in funding a day! There are still 42 days left in this campaign so if
Image: http://www.crowdfundinsider.com
Watson now has the weight of IBM on its shoulders.
Big Blue, the largest technology company on the planet, with 400,000 employees, is betting big on Watson, a cognitive supercomputer with artificial intelligence capabilities that learns from, and teaches, its human subjects.
Watson vaulted to fame by beating the tar out of his human opponents on Jeopardy, a show watched by millions, three years ago.
Image: Mr Seb/Flickr
So many cities and regions continue to struggle economically. Even within nominally well-performing places there are pockets that have been left behind. Most of the have-nots in the current economy have been struggling for an extended period of time, often in spite of enormous efforts to bring positive change.
Why is this? Perhaps we need to consider the possibility that these places are getting exactly the results they want: Maybe they actually don’t want economic development.
Economist David Friedman once told this joke: “Two economists walk past a Porsche showroom. One of them points at a shiny car in the window and says, ‘I want that.’ ‘Obviously not,’ the other replies.”
Never mind the big bang; in the beginning was the vacuum. The vacuum simmered with energy (variously called dark energy, vacuum energy, the inflation field, or the Higgs field). Like water in a pot, this high energy began to evaporate – bubbles formed.
Each bubble contained another vacuum, whose energy was lower, but still not nothing. This energy drove the bubbles to expand. Inevitably, some bubbles bumped into each other. It’s possible some produced secondary bubbles. Maybe the bubbles were rare and far apart; maybe they were packed close as foam.
Last fall, TEDxPenn: Creating the Sound took attendees, me among them, into a fascinating world of sound and technology. Among the speakers was Penn alumnus Dick Zhang, co-founder of Identified Technologies—a member of the Venture Initiation Program, finalist and winner of the Committee Award for Best Use of Technology in the 2014 Wharton Business Plan Competition, and winner of the 2012 Y-Prize. I blogged about my experience at TEDxPenn here; now you can see Dick’s talk yourself:
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Red wine. Cheese. Innovation. Yes, these are all things that get better with age. Don’t believe it? Science offers some pretty compelling evidence that wunderkinds are the exception, rather than the rule.
One researcher found that Nobel Prize winners’ age around a significant breakthrough is about 38 (and not recognized until they're 60) and another posits that a lifetime of learning leads to greater breakthroughs between ages 55-65. Data from the Kauffmann Foundation bears this out as findings indicate people over 55 are almost twice as likely to found successful companies than those between 20 and 34.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Amidst the constant debate about workplace design and the merits of cubicles and open-office layouts, it’s imperative we don’t lose sight of the fact that there are proven strategies to help organizations create workplaces that both empower people and transform business.
Leaders truly seeking to strengthen their business need to leverage workplaces as tools to improve their organization. Merging business goals with design thinking and careful research can absolutely improve communication, innovation, employee engagement, culture, and other performance metrics.
Image: http://www.fastcompany.com
I’m lakeside this week in northern Michigan, hanging out with my extended family. It’s been interesting to observe my six-year-old nephew, who won’t go anywhere without a Power Rangers Megaforce robot in one hand and a Ty Monstaz plush toy in the other. They’re right beside him at the breakfast table, on the dock, at the beach, in the car, and in bed, like 21st-century security blankets.
Image: http://www.xconomy.com
The City of Vancouver wants to inject itself into the venture capital market, using the power and connections of its economic commission to help raise funds for small and medium businesses.
Unhappy with what it says is the inability of local start-ups and medium-sized businesses to get financing for innovative projects, the city plans to create a Vancouver Entrepreneur Fund that would act as a matchmaker between those companies and local and foreign investors.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Congressman Randy Hultgren (R–IL) and seven original cosponsors introduced the Department of Energy Laboratory Modernization and Technology Transfer Act of 2014 on July 17. The bill would create a seamless pathway for private innovators to transition the basic research at America’s national labs to commercial success stories.
If you have room in your head for only one nugget of leadership wisdom, make it this one: the most powerfully motivating condition people experience at work is making progress at something that is personally meaningful. If your job involves leading others, the implications are clear: the most important thing you can do each day is to help your team members experience progress at meaningful work.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
That was my question when I spoke with DreamIt Health newbie BioBots, specifically co-founder Ricardo Solorzano. He has spent three years working on technology to develop low-cost 3D bioprinters that research scientists can use to develop biomaterials. The company was formed by a couple of University of Pennsylvania graduates. They view it as a way to change the way people think of regenerative medicine.
Image: http://medcitynews.com
The lynchpin of the new IBM-Apple alliance will be this simple phrase in the first sentence of their joint press release: “an exclusive partnership.” It sounds so innocent—a sentiment reflected at every human marriage. The two will become one.
But business combinations are not human marriages. About ten years ago, when New Jersey Superior Court judge Margaret McVeigh settled a partnership dispute between Amazon.com and Toys-R-Us, she wrote: “Long term commitment in a world where the technology is advancing almost on a daily basis is difficult to maintain. . .
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he largest living fish, whale sharks, may increasingly be using volcanic islands off the western coast of Europe as a new home as sea surface temperatures rise, researchers say.
This finding could shed light on how climate change might alter the behavior of fish globally, the scientists added.
Image: A whale shark seen near the Azores Islands. Credit: Nuno Sá
